No new Emojis until next year due to COVID19

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread panic across the world, another element of modern social media and texting in general has taken a big hit - We won't be seeing any new unannounced emojis being released this year.

Unicode Consortium, the company that generates emojis for all Android and Apple devices, has announced it won't be releasing any new emojis for the foreseeable, with the next batch delayed until at least September 2021. The emoji creator says the decision has been as a result of trying to cope with the panic caused by the outbreak, as well as a lack of ideas for new emojis, as everything that would be relevant is already an emoji available, such as the face mask emoji, the sick face and the sneezing emoji. Ironically, it is the first time in the modern world where not only are we at a loss for words, but we are now also at a loss for emojis.

No New Emojis Until NEXT YEAR - As Coronavirus Delays New Android & Apple Emoji Release

Cultural trends aren't really much of an area you can look at now, as the news is dominated by coronavirus and any efforts to stop it. One app that has blown up over the period of the outbreak is TikTok. Everyone from families, to young children and their grand parents, have been latching onto the trend. It is just one of many examples of social media where emojis are used in videos as well as the comments section.

Luckily, there are a handful of already announced emojis that are still being released into the back end of this year, such as the bubble tea emoji and the hugging of the transgender flag emoji. You may have also been using the care emoji, which has become surprisingly popular on sites likes Facebook, to show means of support for charitable and honouring posts, especially for people who have lost their lives, as well as charitable organisations who have expressed their gratitude for communities who have chipped in to help, this could range from care homes, to hospices, to food banks.

No New Emojis Until NEXT YEAR - As Coronavirus Delays New Android & Apple Emoji Release

Emoji use, as expected, continues to rise - The most used emoji is the laughing with tears face emoji. In terms of popularity for emojis in general, on Twitter at least one in every 5 tweets contains some form of emoji. Emoji use has turned more negative since last year, with the relative use of positive emojis down by nearly 6 per cent. We are certainly living in strange times, and when even emojis have to be put on hold, it strengthens the fear that we are walking into an era that we have no crystal ball for, we don't know if things will ever return to a so-called normal.

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